Regimes of Narcissism, Regimes of Despair

Ashis Nandy

Description

A polymath of our time, Ashis Nandy's writings and arguments have enriched our thinking for over four decades. Unafraid to walk a difficult terrain, he is one of the most radical public intellectuals of our time.

In this book Nandy talks about a new India, where the fate of the country is largely decided by its political culture that has become the domain of two predominant psychological states: narcissism and despair. Looking at the nationalism of Gandhi and Tagore, Savarkar, and Madanlal Pahwa, and cultural psychology, terror and counter-terror, humiliation and human degradation, happiness, and modernity and the sense of loss, the essays open up the future for the next generation of intellectuals and political activists in India and in other societies.

Regimes of Narcissism, Regimes of Despair

Ashis Nandy

Table of Contents

PrefaceNationalism, Genuine and Spurious: A Very Late Obituary of Two Early Post-Nationalist Strains in India The Demonic and the Seductive in Religious Nationalism: Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and the Rites of Exorcism in Secularizing South Asia Modernity and Sense of Loss Coming Home: Religion, Mass Violence and the Exiled and Secret Selves of a Citizen-Killer Return of the Sacred: Politics of Religion in a Post-Secular Age Terror, Counter-Terror and Self-Destruction: Living with Regimes of Narcissism and Despair Humiliation: The Politics and Cultural Psychology of the Limits of Human Degradation Modernity and the Sense of Loss: Or Why Bhansali's Devdas Defied Experts to Become a Box Office Hit Happiness Index

Regimes of Narcissism, Regimes of Despair

Ashis Nandy

Author Information

Ashis Nandy is a political psychologist, social theorist, and contemporary cultural and political critic. He was Senior Fellow and Director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) for several years, and is currently a Senior Honorary Fellow at the institute.